A machine type communication (MTC) application refers to an application for network communication performed by one or more network elements if no human participation is required, such as traffic control and management, remote meter reading, remote monitoring, mobile payment, locating and tracing, or medical monitoring.
An MTC terminal may communicate with an MTC application server or an MTC application service platform by using a mobile communications network. Currently, in order to exchange a data packet of a small data volume between the MTC terminal and an MTC server by using the mobile communications network, a machine type communication-interworking function (MTC-IWF) entity is introduced. The MTC terminal can exchange a data packet of a small data volume with the MTC server on a control plane by using the MTC-IWF entity. However, this solution supports only data exchange between an MTC terminal and an MTC server; for exchange of a data packet of a small data volume between MTC terminals, a user plane bearer still needs to be established by using the mobile communications network. In this way, large quantities of control plane resources and user plane resources need to be used to establish a bearer for two MTC terminals to transmit a data packet of a small data volume, leading to a waste of network resources.